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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gloria
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Gloria

Author: George Frederic Turner

Illustrator: C. M. Relyea

Release date: February 4, 2024 [eBook #72873]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1910

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLORIA ***

"I've got some sort of an idea," he said at length (page 122)
 GLORIA
BY

G. FREDERIC TURNER, M.A.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

BY C. M. RELYEA

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

Published, March, 1910

 CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I The Patient and His Doctor

II The City of the Plain
III A Proposition
IV The Thiergarten
V The King's Cup
VI "Wein, Weib, und Gesang"
VII Confidences in a Wine-Shop
VIII The Bargain
IX The King's Breakfast
X A Ski-ing Expedition
XI The Iron Maiden
XII The Simple Policy
XIII On the Warpath
XIV Music and the Mob
XV The Temptation of Ulrich
XVI King and Canaille
XVII "Captain" Trafford
XVIII The First Council
XIX The Chapel Royal
XX Bernhardt Disturbed
XXI Dreams
XXII The War on the Wine-Shop
XXIII The "Bob" Run
XXIV Rival Influences
XXV The Opening Bars
XXVI The Parley
XXVII Trafford and the Trench
XXVIII Meyer at Work
XXIX News from the Capital
XXX Recruits
XXXI "A Surprise"
XXXII The Conquering King
XXXIII The Lost Sheep
Epilogue

ILLUSTRATIONS

"I've got some sort of an idea," he said at length (page 122) ... Frontispiece

"The lady wants to be seen home—and I'm going to do it if I swing for it!"

"If I see so much as an inch of blade, this little hand-grenade of mine will
play havoc with your handsome features"

"I drink to our success to-night, I drink to the devil in the devil's own
tipple"

CHAPTER ONE
 THE PATIENT AND HIS DOCTOR

Christmas Eve in New York! Broadway crowded with happy playgoers,

gay promenaders, and belated shoppers! Fifth Avenue resplendent with an
abundance of commercially-conceived festivity in the overstocked windows
of its fashionable shops! In other and less pretentious localities, gaunt lines
of assassinated turkeys exhibiting their sallow nudities in indecent
profusion to a steady stream of ever-changing faces! In short, everywhere
throughout the big city, the people holding high carnival—even cynicism
forgetting itself in the prospect of gallinaceous food and crude sweetmeats.
And Central Park West and the Circle, in particular, scintillating with
electrical display and wreaths of red-ribboned holly.

In the New Theatre a gala performance of Antony and Cleopatra was

nearly over; the last lines of the tragedy were being spoken. Yet,
notwithstanding the fact that in another moment the folds of the red velvet
curtains would descend on the Egyptian scene, an occupant of one of the
stalls, no longer able to control his impatience, hastily left his seat and
started up the adjoining aisle.

To say that this young man gave every physiognomical indication of

being a soul in distress would be putting it not a bit too strongly. Nor would
it have required exceptionally brilliant intuitive faculties to conjecture that
someone—presumably in a box across the theatre, on which, all through the
evening, his eyes had been riveted—had shamelessly robbed him of his
heart. Moreover, judging from his evident haste and the keen anxiety with
which all the way up the aisle he followed every movement of the parties in
the box, it would seem that he had determined to intercept them on their
way out. And, indeed, such was his determination. Life had concentrated
itself into a question of hearing from the lips of the woman,—the woman to
whom he had offered, and who had refused, the worship of a life,—a word
that he could interpret as meaning that there was still a faint possibility of
her changing her mind.

To his vexation, however, he found that others likewise had left their
seats. In fact, the general exodus had already set in before, even, he had
reached the top of the aisle. And yet, despite his being thoroughly aware
that any attempt to pass from one side of the house to the other was sure to
be resented,—so delirious is the haste in which a metropolitan audience
takes leave of the theatre for the invariable restaurant-supper after the play,
—he continued to make strenuous efforts to cut his way through, until
realising, finally, that it was useless, he let himself be borne along by the
crowd. But his chance came when the carriage-vestibule on Sixty-Fifth
Street was reached. And there, quick to take advantage of an almost
imperceptible cessation of the onward movement—consequent upon the
people searching the ingeniously-devised board to ascertain whether the
desired motors or carriages headed the long line—he again started in to
elbow his way through the crush; and so successfully this time that
presently comparatively few persons separated him from an undeniably
blond and dashing young woman, in a magnificent opera-cloak of Russian
sables, who was laughing and chatting with half a dozen or more vapid
youths while following the lead of a portly and somewhat red-faced old
gentleman.

Now, though unusual—for want of a better word—as was the young

man's behaviour, few people in this scene of orderly confusion, babel of
voices and distant humming of motors, gave more than momentary
attention to it except the young woman's escort. To these wondrous wise
young gentlemen, however, the meaning of his frantic exertions to reach her
side was all too plain, no less her feelings towards him; and, exchanging
significant glances, they began to nudge one another to watch for the
dénouement of the little comedy which was rapidly developing before their
eyes.

But alas for the futility of his brave resolutions...!

So far his task had been easy enough. But at the fateful moment, face to
face with his divinity, and doubtless for the first time perceiving that no
relenting glance softened the faultless contours of her carven features, that
no spark of warmth glinted in her big, blue eyes,—eyes that, on the
contrary, were brimful of scornful laughter,—his indomitable spirit failed
him utterly, was crushed, for once, at least, and he stood gaping at her, to
everyone's surprise, more like a country yokel than the man-of-the-world
that he undoubtedly was. For the briefest of intervals he remained thus. And
then, apparently pulling himself together, he suddenly wheeled round on his
heel, and shouldering his way through the press,—heedless alike of a
friendly hail, which came in an unmistakably English accent from someone
back in the crowd, and of the protesting looks, if not words, of the people
he jostled,—he left an ostentatiously, almost vulgarly, ornate limousine to
slam its door and move rapidly away with its fair occupant and her
admirers.

Into Central Park West the young man turned and walked north. Despite
a heavy fur overcoat, his gait was extraordinarily fast, and his face appeared
white, almost ghastly, in the thin, yellow fog that was pushing its way under
his eyelids, into the penetralia of nose and ears, and depositing superfluous
matter on his lungs, larynx, and reckless expanse of linen. A few blocks
above the theatre he came to a small apartment-hotel, mounted at a run to
the first floor, and quickly entering the sitting-room of the suite, he
carelessly tossed his irreproachable high hat on to a lounge. Then he went
over to a window and stood gazing out at the sea of fog before drawing the
curtain against the gamboge of the December evening. And his countenance
was at once savage and inexpressibly sad.

This savageness was habitual, the resultant of bold features: a straight

nose which made a sharp angle with the steep brow, bushy eyebrows and a
wiry, brush-backed moustache that sprouted aggressively from his upper
lip. Strictly speaking it was not a handsome face, though, perhaps, a striking
one. Nor in other respects was there anything remarkable about George
Trafford—"Nervy" Trafford they had called him at Harvard, and the
appellation had always clung to him. As to occupation he had none.
Inheriting a modest fortune at an early age, his life had differed little from
that of the majority of young Americans in like circumstances, if we except
the fact that—before he took up the difficult task of killing time—he had
added an Oxford degree to that of Harvard.

Throwing off his coat, Trafford fumbled in his waistcoat for a key. A
moment later he was opening a small mahogany medicine-cupboard that
was fixed against the wall over his book-case. His searching hand groped
about in its recesses and then brought out—something. For a second he held
this "something" at arms length, conning it with curious eyes, as a dilettante
might study a precious cameo, or a bit of rare porcelain.

Then he put it carefully on the table. The electric light shone on a small,
compact object, dark of colour and sinister of shape—a revolver!

Nervy Trafford took pen and paper and wrote; and as he wrote the
curious light grew in his wild eyes, and a sad smile played about his
sensitive mouth.

"Dearest," he began:—"You say you can never love me. I say that I can
never cease to love you. You have spoken a lie, even as I have spoken the
truth, for when the mists of life are dispelled by the glorious radiance
beyond the grave, you will love me as I love you, perfectly, entirely, with the
triple majesty of soul, mind and spirit. Till then, farewell.

Yours, as you are mine,

GEORGE TRAFFORD."

Having read this curious epistle twice, he put it in an envelope and

addressed it to Miss Angela Knox, St. Regis Hotel. A moment later he took
up the object from the table, looking into vacancy as he did so.

So this was to be his end!—an ending, he well knew, that none of his
friends had ever dreamed of. A man on whom advice was thrown away,
who seldom if ever thought twice, in other words, a creature of impulse, yes
—they would admit all that; but on the other hand would they not recall
many instances of his extricating himself from tight places through nothing
else but this very impulsiveness and nerve of his? Inevitably, then, they
would refuse to believe that a man like that, however hopeless his
infatuation, would take his own life. All of which merely goes to show how
ridiculous it is for our best friends to scoff at the notion that an affair of the
heart may be taken seriously.

Trafford's face was literally bloodless; his pupils infinitesimal black

dots, gazing searchingly through the walls of his room into the great
beyond, where all questions are answered, all doubts set at rest. For a
moment he stood thus in vibrant silence. Then,—as if his mute searching
had received its dumb response,—his lips breathed a woman's name, the
muzzle of the revolver was raised head high, there was a click—and
nothing more than a click!

Trafford's arm fell limp to his side, and a look of sick pain shuddered
across his face. Then, an idea, a wafted air of recollection, fanned the light
of understanding into his dull eyes. A ghost of a smile hovered at the corner
of his lips, and again the cold hand raised the deadly mechanism to his
pulsing temple. Even as it did so the door of his room was opened, and with
a gesture of annoyance Trafford tossed the unused weapon on to the table
and facing the intruder burst out with:

"Who on earth——"

"Hullo, Nervy, old chap!" was the familiar greeting that came from a big
and genial man, clean-shaved, about thirty years of age, and dressed
seasonably in a dark, astrachan-trimmed overcoat. In a word, the speaker
was a faultlessly attired Englishman, whose great frame and smiling
features seemed to bring into the tragic atmosphere a most desirable air of
commonplace.

"Bob Saunders!" ejaculated Trafford.

"The same," affirmed the other, throwing off his overcoat and sinking
lazily into the most comfortable chair he could find; "Robert Saunders, old
cricket blue, devoted husband of a peerless wife, the friend of kings and the
king of friends—voila!"

By this time Trafford had composed himself sufficiently to ask:

"What in the deuce are you doing over here? How did you find——"

"Been camping on your trail, old man,—as you Yankees say,"

interrupted the Englishman. "In the first place, the wife and I have been
doing the States. To-night, as we were leaving the New Theatre, I caught
sight of you—sung out to you—but you were off like a shot. I put Mrs.
Saunders—divine creature!—into a taxi and sent her to the hotel. Then I
gave chase. I tracked you here, and your door being open, took the liberty to
walk in. But you don't look well, old chap!" he went on, noticing at length
the exceptional pallor of his friend's face. "You look rotten! What's up,
Nervy? Liver? Money?"

Trafford pointed silently to the table; at the sight of the revolver

Saunders' face grew grave.

"As bad as that?" he asked. He was genuinely shocked, but his tone was
commonplace, almost casual.

"As bad as that," breathed Trafford.

Saunders caught sight of the envelope, glanced at the address and at

once proceeded to open it.

"Stop!" cried Trafford imperiously. "That is not for your eyes."

"Oh, yes it is," returned Saunders bluntly, extracting the letter from its
envelope. "Sit down, sick man, and wait until I have diagnosed your case."

Trafford watched the Englishman with fascinated eyes. In his hour of

deep darkness this smiling, confident, almost too well-dressed embodiment
of prosperity seemed strangely comforting and reposeful. For the briefest of
moments his present surroundings were blotted out, and his mind rushed
back through the intervening years to the glorious days when they were
both undergraduates at Oxford. But the illusion was of short duration, the
awakening bitter. For as Saunders read, a smile eloquent of contemptuous
astonishment spread over his face.

"Angela Knox!" he exclaimed. "My dear, demented friend, what a

bétisse!"

"The purest, most perfect specimen of womanhood——"

"Angela Knox!" repeated Saunders cruelly. "Ye gods! Oh, yes, I know
the lady. We met her at Newport—a big, buxom blonde, with the intellect of
a sparrow. Tissue, tissue, my boy, and no soul! Features, millions also, I
concede, but no sense of humour. In six weeks she would bore you; in six
months you would bore her; in a year the machinery of the law—your
obliging American divorce courts——"

"Silence!" roared Trafford. "You would poke fun at the holiest corner of
a man's heart. I tell you, Bob, I so love this woman that had it not been for a
miracle, I should have died five minutes ago with her name on my lips."

"And I'm the miracle?" questioned Saunders, tapping himself lightly on

his faultless waistcoat.

"Miracle number two," replied the American, sinking into a chair. "That
gun was kept for burglars. To preclude the possibility of an accident through
some fool of a servant's mishandling, I kept the first chamber empty. Idiot
that I am!—I forgot the precaution. But a second and doubtless more
conclusive attempt would have been made had not you butted in——"

"And for Angela Knox!" cried Saunders with an unfeeling grin. "Now
had it been a brunette——"

"This is no joking matter. For Heaven's sake, do be serious!"

Saunders brushed a speck of mud off his patent-leather boots.

"So I'm to take you seriously, Nervy? Well, then, listen, my dear,
irresponsible, melodramatic friend. Love is a wonderful thing. It is rightly
considered the beginning and the end of all things. I say so, moi qui vous
parle, though I've been married nearly two years. But this infatuation—this
calf-love of yours for a hypertrophied blonde with the conversational
powers of a turnip, is, ipso facto, ridiculous. You will love some day, friend
of my youth, but if your love is unrequited you will not turn to the revolver
for solace."

"What are you letting me in for?" asked the bewildered Trafford. A

powerful reaction had left him weak—weak in voice and weak in spirit.

"I mean," went on Saunders with slow emphasis, "that if you demand
what your heart really desires and the response is 'no,' you will, in the words
of the prehistoric doggerel, try, try again. Love that accepts defeat is an
unhealthy passion; Love that tries to find relief in death is a disease. You are
diseased, cher ami. Buck up! and listen to the words of your good doctor."

"I'm listening," said Trafford somewhat sheepishly.

"Good! To begin with, you are sound physically. Muscles firm, energy
splendid, and your tongue would probably shame a hot-house geranium.
But your psychic self is out of gear. Wheels are racing in your poor old
brain! Little troubles become great tragedies! Vital things seem small and
insignificant! You need a potent remedy."

"Let it come over speedy then!" the American replied with some show
of interest.

For a moment the Englishman looked mystified. Presently he answered:

"You need to live in the open—plenty of sunshine and perfect air."

"All kibosh—buncombe!" broke forth Trafford petulantly.

"No, not buncombe, but Grimland—a little country on the borders of

Austria and Russia. Visit it," went on Saunders in rousing tones. "Its
highlands furnish the finest scenery in Europe. The air of its mountains is
sparkling champagne! Its skies are purest sapphire, its snows whiter than
sheets of finest lawn! To dwell there is to be a giant refreshed with wine, a
sane man with a sane mind, and a proper contempt for amorous
contretemps. Come, pack up your traps to-night and catch the Lusitania to-
morrow. What's more, I do not advise, I command."

The American appeared half persuaded by the other's mastery. He sat

upright, and looked more or less alive again.

"But I should be bored to death," he objected feebly.

"Not a bit of it! Why, old man, you'll forget the very meaning of the
word boredom. You're a skater?—well, then, why not enter for the King's
Cup which is skated for on the King's birthday—the second Saturday of the
New Year at Weidenbruck. If you're beaten, as is probable,—for the
Grimlanders are a nation of skaters,—there is tobogganing, curling, ski-ing
and hockey-on-the-ice to engross your mind. All are exhilarating, most are
dangerous. Furthermore, you will have my society—as my wife and I will
be guests of King Karl at the Neptunberg. However, for you, since you have
not my advantages, I recommend the Hôtel Concordia. You will sail with us
to-morrow?" he wound up confidently.

Trafford made a gesture of impatience.

"Honestly," he said, ignoring the question, "when the hammer of that

gun clicked against my forehead, something also seemed to click inside my
brain. Up to that point I had love framed up as all there was to this world
and the next. Now I feel there is no meaning in anything."

"Wait till you've got a pair of skates on your feet and the breath of zero
air in your nostrils! Wait till you've had a toss or two ski-ing, and a spill on
the 'Kastel' toboggan run! There will be meaning enough in things then."

"It's a go, then!" declared Trafford, but without enthusiasm. "I'll make a
getaway."

Saunders rose, a look of genuine relief on his face.

"The Lusitania to-morrow," he said in far heartier tones than he had yet
employed. "Till then——" He held the other's hand in a long grip.

"And you don't balk at leaving me with that?" Trafford pointed with a
pale smile at the revolver on the table.

"Not in the least," laughed Saunders. "Take it abroad with you. Only, get
out of the habit of leaving the first chamber empty. Such a practice might be
fatal in Grimland."
 CHAPTER TWO

THE CITY OF THE PLAIN

"I can't see that this is such a vast improvement on little old New York!"
was Trafford's growling comment as he strolled the streets of Weidenbruck
the evening of his arrival.

"Ah, but Weidenbruck is the city of the plain!" returned Saunders, who
was accompanying him in his perambulations. "As soon as this skating
competition is over——"

"It will be back to Broadway for mine, I think!" interrupted the

American, and then went on with despondent logic: "If it is cold here, what
will it be five thousand feet higher up?"

"Hot," retorted the other. "At Weissheim the sun shines unobscured by
mist. The air there is dry and bracing. The thermometer may stand at zero,
but your warm gloves will be a mockery, your great coat an offence."

A gust from a side street blew a whirl of powdered snow in the faces of
the two men. Trafford buried his chin in the warm collar of his overcoat; he
swore, but without undue bitterness. The cold indeed was poignant, for the
unfrozen flood of the Niederkessel lent the atmosphere a touch of moisture
that gave malice to the shrill frost, a penetrating venom to the spiteful
breeze that swept the long length and broad breadth of the straight, prosaic
Bahnofstrasse. The trams that rushed noisily up and down this thoroughfare
were the only things that still moved on wheels. Cabs, carriages, omnibuses,
perambulators even, had discarded wheels in favour of runners; and arc-
lamps shone coldly from an interminable line of iron masts, while a cheerier
glow blazed from the windows of innumerable shops which still displayed
their attractive wares for the benefit of the good citizens of Weidenbruck,
who have raised the science of wrapping up to the level of a fine art.

"But then why come to this cellar of a town?" grunted Trafford.

 Saunders shot a glance at his companion. He was genuinely fond of
Trafford, had been genuinely shocked at the narrowness of his escape from
tragic ruin, and was genuinely glad when his morbid companion began to
take intelligent interest in his surroundings,—even though that interest
manifested itself in irritable comments and deprecatory grunts. The
Englishman had chaffed the would-be suicide, had poured cruel scorn on
his inamorata, and preached the cold gospel of worldliness and selfish
pleasure; but if he had spoken cynically it had been because cynicism had
seemed the right remedy, rather than because his own nature was bitter.
Beyond having a rather high opinion of his own abilities and a predilection
for new clothes, Saunders was a man of much merit.

"Because this skating competition happens to be held here," he

answered, "and the King's Cup is the important event in the sporting
calendar of Grimland. The winner—who may be yourself—is looked upon
as a king among men, a demi-god to be honoured with the burnt offerings
of the rich and the bright glances of the fair."

"The latter I can dispense with. Cut it out!" the American exclaimed
with much bitterness, and then went on: "I did not come to Grimland
merely for sport, as you well know, but because you hinted at political
troubles. Moreover, I have taken your advice literally, and have brought my
gun along."

"Keep it loaded then," said Saunders curtly. "I hear Father Bernhardt has
returned."

"Who in thunder is Father Bernhardt?"

"A renegade priest. In the troubles of 1904 he eloped with the Queen,
who had been plotting her husband's downfall with the Schattenbergs."

"His Majesty's opposition," put in Trafford, who knew something of the

country's turbid history.

"Yes, kinsmen of King Karl's who have always cherished a secret claim
to the throne. They very nearly made their claim good, too, in 1904."